Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Spiritual Leader To Iraq’s Insurgency Harith Dhari Dies In Exile

At the start of March 2015 Harith Dhari the head of the
Association of Muslim Scholars died in Turkey. Dhari was a leading opponent of
the U.S. occupation of Iraq, which led him to support the insurgency. Both his
son and nephew became leaders in militant groups as a result. Dhari was
eventually issued an arrest warrant that caused him to leave the country, and later
the United States and United Nations labeled him a terrorist supporter as well.
Even after the American military withdrawal in 2011, he continued to criticize
the Iraqi government. Dhari represented the Sunni rejection of the post-2003
Iraq, and how that led many towards violence.

Harith Dhari was a religious leader from a well known
family. He was born in Khan
Dhari in the Abu
Ghraib district of western Baghdad. He was the grandson of Sheikh Suleiman
Dhari who was a leader in the 1920 revolt against British rule in Iraq. Dhari received
several degrees throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He became a professor of
Islamic law at the University of Baghdad and was an imam with a wide following
in the capital. In the 1990s he fled
the country, and did not return until July 2003.

When Dhari came back to Iraq he became the leader
of the Association of Muslim Scholars, which was a major rejectionist group.
The Association was based out of the Um Qura mosque in Baghdad, and attempted
to become the spiritual and political leader of the Sunni community in the new
post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. To achieve that goal Dhari advocated for armed
struggle against the Americans. In various sermons and statements he accused
the U.S. of destroying Iraq’s culture and civilization and violating human
rights. In turn, he said it was the right of Iraqis to resist the occupation of
their country, and supported the insurgency as a result. He would often compare
the struggle against the Americans to the 1920 one against the British. He claimed
this was not a sectarian movement, and that he wanted to unite all Iraqis, but
at other times he referred to Sunnis being the majority of Iraq, and implied
that meant Shiite did not have the right to rule. His rejection of the new Iraq
extended into politics as well. He said none of Iraq’s new leaders were loyal
to the country, he called for a boycott
of the 2005 elections, a no vote against the constitution, and rejected
the Anbar Awakening when it started in 2006. Dhari expressed many of the fears
and frustrations of Iraq’s Sunni community after the 2003 invasion. Sunnis were
used to ruling the country before, and now were they not only out of power, but
people they had been told were enemies of the state, namely Americans, Shiites
and Kurds, were now running things. Some of the new ruling parties were also connected
to Iran, which had become the existential threat to Iraq under Saddam. Angered
by the turn of events led many like Dhari to call for armed struggle.

Dhari was not only a vocal supporter of violence, but his
family became leaders in the insurgency as well. During various times, Dhari endorsed
things like kidnapping and the killing of foreigners. He also said
that Al Qaeda in Iraq was part of the legitimate resistance. Dhari’s son
Muthanna Dhari and his nephew
Harith Dhari Khamis Dhari were both leaders in the 1920 Revolution Brigades. In
August
2004 his son was arrested when explosive residue was found in his car. He
was released because Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was in talks with the
Association of Muslim Scholars to try to get it to back the new government. His
father was not as lucky as a warrant was issued for him in November
2006 for his support of the insurgency, which caused him to flee
the country. Later in 2010,
the United States Treasury Department and United Nations both labeled the
senior Dhari as a terrorist backer as well.

In 2007, Dhari came out against Al Qaeda in Iraq after it
killed his nephew, but that might have only been a temporary split. In May 2007
he said he rejected Al Qaeda in Iraq’s attempt to form an Islamic state. He
criticized the group for going too far, and accused it of trying to take over
the wider insurgency. This was not because he suddenly had a change of heart,
but was rather caused by the Islamists killing his nephew Harith Dhari Khamis
Dhari in March. This was a time when Al Qaeda in Iraq was coming into open
conflict with other militant groups for leadership of the resistance. It wanted
to be the vanguard of the insurgency, and would kill anyone that stood in its
way. It also actively worked to infiltrate and take over other groups like the
1920 Revolution Brigade. Still, it appeared that this break was not permanent
as in 2010 the U.S. charged Dhari’s son Muthanna with visiting Al Qaeda in Iraq
training camps in Syria and helping it with financing.

Even after the U.S. withdrew its forces in 2011, Dhari did
not give up his opposition to the new Iraq. The next year when the Sunni
protests began in Anbar and spread to other areas of central and northern Iraq,
he praised them. Dhari called
them another phase in the resistance. The Shiite and Kurdish parties were still
in power, and Dhari considered them illegitimate rulers beholden to themselves
and their foreign masters in Washington and Tehran.

Dhari was never able to return to Iraq and died in exile in
Turkey on March 12, 2015. That was a fitting end to a man who rejected
everything about post-2003 Iraq. He never gave the new system a chance seeing
it as illegitimate from the start, because of the U.S. occupation. He was even
against Iraqi initiatives such as the Anbar Awakening, and continued to be
against the government even after the U.S. departed. Instead, he called for
violence, which cost him his own nephew’s life at the hands of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Dhari’s rejectionist views continue to be shared by the insurgency, which plagues
the country.

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com